


Productivity

by nirejseki



Series: Lil Bro AU [2]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Families of Choice, Family, Gen, M/M, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 23:39:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6728032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Len is not a very good person but he is a very good big brother.  Also, prison is a thing that happens. </p>
<p>(Lil Bro verse: Barry is Mick's younger brother)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Productivity

**Author's Note:**

> In which I am fundamentally incapable of writing cutesy AU snippets of siblings being adorable without also writing out the rest of the world. If you have any suggestions for things you'd like to see in this world, let me know! 
> 
> (yes, the whole Flash thing is going to happen, you don't need to ask for that)

They were only on the job because there was a science-type summer camp that Barry had his heart set on and Len had sworn up and down that it was worth sending him to. Mick personally didn’t see what the big deal was about all this school stuff; anything you really wanted to learn you could pick up from the library on your own time. Look at him and Len: Mick’d only finished a year and change of community college because his parole officer had been on his ass the whole time and Len hadn’t even finished high school. 

But Barry wanted it, so Barry was going to get it.

Of course, for every five jobs they pull that go smooth, they hit one that goes south in a hurry, and this one’s just gone bad much faster than expected. The museum added an extra alarm at the last minute, their exit route got covered up for construction, and the sirens started a lot faster than expected. There must have been a patrol car already in the area.

Mick glances at the bag in his hand, which has basically everything they were going for, then at Len, waiting to hear the plan. Len gnaws at his lower lip a little, then flicks his fingers just a little, enough to let Mick know he wants him to step forward. Mick does, pressing up against him.

“You go out the window,” Len murmurs, barely moving his lips. They must be in line of sight of a security camera. “I’ll distract the first car, which’ll draw off the rest.” 

“No way,” Mick hisses. He’d been hoping for a better plan than _that_. “I’m not letting you get tossed in the can without me.”

“You got priors, I only got juvie and that’s at least a while back,” Len points out.

“Yeah, but you’re shit at taking care of yourself.” 

If one of them should go in, it ought to be Mick; Mick was bigger and tougher, already well known enough for some measure of protection. 

“I’ll manage.”

“But Lisa –”

“Lise’ll be fine. You got _Barry_.”

Damn him, but Len’s got a point. Lisa’s practically an adult by now and tough to boot; Barry’s still dependent on Mick. He can’t afford to leave him alone.

“Give me one and get out of here,” Len hisses. “No more stalling.”

Mick cursed, loudly and volubly, then slammed his fist into Len’s face, causing Len to stagger back into the display. He turned on his heel and headed out to the window, even as Len picked himself up and dragged himself straight out to meet the oncoming police.

\-----------------------

Len waited patiently to be taken to the local jail. As he’d expected, the local prosecutor had taken one look at his black eye and bruised nose, the video footage of Mick – half a head taller and twice as broad – punching him in the face, and the long, long list of domestic violence arrests-but-no-convictions in his father’s record, and had recommended leniency. He’d barely waited for his court-appointed lawyer to show up before accepting the deal: three months on the inside, plus some parole afterwards, provided he agreed to weekly meetings with a social worker. 

He’d be out before Barry even went off to that summer camp of his. 

“You know, if you can tell us more about where your ‘friend’ is, we could get you a better deal. Maybe even just community service,” his lawyer had told him. “Your friend isn’t really a good friend if he’s hitting you and letting you take the fall for him, now is he?” 

After all this time, though, Len knew just what they expected you to say, the right sort of balance to strike that would get him written off as a sad but mostly hopeless sob story, someone the prosecutors would feel like they tried their best but wouldn’t pay too much attention. It was easy – he just had to pretend to be himself, twelve years back and pleading with them to just leave his dad alone because he’d only get angrier when he returned if he knew they’d been asking Len questions. 

Iron Heights was a familiar sight, looming ominously. He’d been in a few times before, mostly kicking his heels in custody while waiting for an arraignment that didn’t end up going anywhere, but this was the first adult crime that’d stuck. Another black mark for the record – they wouldn’t be so nice next time, or the next, or the time after that. 

Len amused himself through processing by trying to construct an approximate timeline for when the justice system officially moved you from “sob story worthy of pity and leniency” to “hopeless case you should throw the book at to get off the streets” and how that timeline expanded or contracted based on other factors (race, size, poverty level, family history, general attractiveness, etc.). It wasn’t all that amusing, but it kept his brain busy.

The first few days were about what he expected: he broke the nose of the first guy who catcalled him and got into a loud discussion with his new cell-mate about the best type of shiv to use for various types of situations, so the initial risk of being jumped faded out pretty quick. He avoided the tough guys and the gangs, carefully didn’t step on any toes. No guarantee that’d continue unless he continued to put on a tough face, but at least they hadn’t immediately marked him down as a fish. 

Day four dawned and everything changes: the COs bring Henry Allen back down to Gen Pop. 

Len presses his face to the bars trying to catch a glimpse.

“That’s Doc Allen,” his cellmate tells him, bored and flicking through a magazine. “He’s in for murder in the first, but he’s a wimp. The COs put him in protection and solitary more often than not, but his luck’s gonna run out some time. The gangs have been up in each other’s faces the last month or so, trying to get everyone to pick a side.” 

“Who’s his cellie?” Len inquired.

His cellmate blinked. “Why?”

Len grinned a little. “Just curious.” He needs to make sure the man doesn’t die, after all. 

“ _Why_?” his cellmate asked again, utterly baffled. “No offense, but someone as pretty as you can do a whole lot better than that.”

Len gave him a look and his cellmate abruptly remembered the shiv discussion. “Right,” he muttered, going back to his magazine. “Never mind.”

He doesn’t even have time to formally meet the guy before someone tries to go after Barry’s father during their free time. Luckily for everyone, Len’s been shadowing the guy, trying to study him from a distance, so he spots the glint of metal before the guy’s even fully drawn it. He’s on the bastard – a Santini thug, looks like, low down on the totem pool – before he can complete the attack, smashing his fist into the guy’s face with one hand and lifting off the guy’s shiv with the other to stash later. The other Santinis start to move closer, so Len rolls off the guy, grabs Doc Allen, and hustles him away from there before the COs notice what happened.

“Thanks, kid,” the man gasps once Len gets him back inside the mess hall, hand on his chest to try to calm his heart down from his fright. He sounds grateful, but wary – good, so he’s learned something in the three years since he’s been in the clink. No one gives away anything for free, not even help.

Len pats him on the shoulder. “My name’s Leonard Snart,” he says. “It’s nice to meet you. Who’s your cellie?”

“I’m Henry Allen,” the man replies suspiciously. “And why…?”

Len sighs and misses Lisa and Mick and Barry. They always got what he meant without a endless amount of explanation. 

He decides to give the explanation a miss and uses the next half hour to arrange a cell transfer with the COs. Since Allen’s got no record of sexually abusing other inmates and has a good rep with the COs, and Len’s all bright and shiny and new, they figure it’ll be a good match. Allen watches him suspiciously the whole time, but when someone asks him if Len’s threatening _him_ or anything, Allen stammers indignantly like Barry confronted by someone being stupid about science. 

Good to know that Barry's _absolute lack of cool_ is genetic.

Allen’s totally paranoid, though with the way the Santinis are watching them he’s got some reason to be. Luckily Len’s dad has something of a vicious rep among the Families, even inside, and after he proves he lives up to it, they back off for the time being. Len’s got some idea on how to keep Allen safe after he’s out, but they’ll take some time to implement.

In the meantime, he asks Allen to teach him how to stitch people up and counts down the days till the end of the week, when he can set up a phone call with Lisa. 

He’s a day away when Allen finally cracks.

“Who’re you working for, Len?” he asks. “I’ve already told the mob families I’m not interested.”

Len hums a little, doing sit-ups to relieve the tedium. “I don’t work for the Families,” he replies.

“Then what do you want? It’s not lessons in how to sew up knife wounds using a hypodermic needle you ‘obtained’ from the infirmary.”

Len sits up, stretches a little and looks up at Allen thoughtfully. “I _want_ to keep you and me both out of trouble,” he replies. “And I’m working on a way to do that. If you want to do me a solid in the meantime, though, you can answer a few questions.”

“A few questions about what?”

Sometimes Len really wishes he wasn’t obsessive about keeping his promises. He’s broken too many to Lisa; he can’t bear to do the same to Barry if he’s got any other choice about it. That doesn’t mean this conversation is going to go any easier. Some things you can’t slid into tactfully.

“How about the night your wife died?” he asked, aiming for casual.

“The night Nora died?” Allen seemed entirely taken aback. “Why do you want to know?”

“Call it curiosity. Just…I don’t know, tell it to me like you did to the cops, yeah?”

Allen crosses his arms. “It’s none of your business.”

“I have literally fought _three different people_ to keep you from ending up in the morgue or under Family control,” Len replies, annoyed. “In the last _two days_. And if I get a rep for fighting, it could impact my ability to get out of here in three months like I’m supposed to. _Least_ you can do is answer a few invasive questions.”

Allen sits down heavily. “I only knew about two of those fights,” he says. He sounds tired. “God, kid, how old even are you?”

Len shrugs. “Laundry room, we kept it quiet. Don’t worry about it; the COs didn’t figure it out. And not that it matters, but I’m twenty two. Now. The night your wife died?”

Allen tells him. Len asks a few questions, commits the story to memory. It’s a pretty bad story, bad enough that the pigs probably gave the whole ‘investigating’ bullshit a miss; there might be some leads he can run down for Barry when he gets out. Search the house, the street where Barry was found, maybe some home security systems in the vicinity…crap, he was going to have to think like a cop for this one. At least being his father’s son isn’t going to be a _total_ waste. 

Allen was a surgeon, with a surgeon’s arrogance; working in the ER would have accustomed him to violent death. That comfort would have been held against him by the pigs. Len’s not going to judge him based on that – he’s going to judge him on Barry’s faith, instead, no matter how misplaced it might end up being. That being said, Len doesn’t think it’s all that misplaced – his Barry’s a surprisingly good judge of character.

Len’s met a lot of killers in his life, pros and amateurs alike, and this guy hasn’t been pinging his radar. No spontaneous anger when things don’t go his way, no casual misogyny, no excessive complaints about the pigs getting it wrong. Nothing like Dad. Thus far Len still hasn’t seen anything that convinced him completely that the guy’s guilty, so he’s going to do one above the criminal justice system and assume that the whole “wouldn’t hurt a fly he didn’t have to” façade is the real thing.

“…and that’s it, that’s when Joe – Joe West, he was a friend of mine, lived a few streets down from me – that’s when he ran in. He’s an officer; he was the closest to the scene and got the alert first. He called for an ambulance, but there was nothing they could do for Nora.” Allen concludes.

Len nods thoughtfully. Seemed like a fairly complete story, but for one omission. “Did you see any lightning that night?” he asks.

Allen tenses. “What do you mean?” he asks. “It was a clear night.”

“Yeah, you said. Still. Do you remember seeing any lightning? Or anything that could be mistaken for it? Strobe lights – like from a car alarm, or a siren – electrical sparks, some kind of malfunction…anything yellow and red?”

Allen moves faster than Len would have expected from a guy with a rep for non-violence. He grabs Len by the collar and shoves him against the wall. His grip is weak, his stance is terrible; Len catalogues at least five ways he could break free without damaging either of them and relaxes against the wall. 

“Where did you hear that?” Allen snarls. It’s not the _worst_ attempt at being intimidating that Len’s ever seen. He’s sure that one of the girls in Lisa’s kindergarten class way back when must’ve been wimpier. 

That Alicia had been a stone cold bitch, though. Scariest five-year-old with a ballerina backpack he’d ever met. 

Allen shakes him, knocking his head back against the concrete wall. “Where did you hear that?” he repeats desperately. “The stuff about the red and yellow lightning.”

“I heard it here and there,” Len says.

“That never made it into the papers,” Allen tells him. “The only place it’s ever been written down is in police records, and there’s no way you’ve been in the files of an active police investigation. So you must have heard it from someone. Barry. _Tell me you know where Barry is_.”

Len feels a bit bad for the guy. Must suck having your kid go into the system and then disappear out of it like the sieve that it is, especially if you care about them. There’s a reason he stopped looking to CPS for help after he realized they could take Lisa away from him if they wanted to. 

He doesn’t feel that bad, though. Guy’s still pinning him to the wall.

“I don’t see it’s any of your business what I’ve heard or where I’ve heard it,” he says coldly. “One warning, Allen. Hands off.”

Allen doesn’t listen, of course. “Please, you don’t understand, he’s my _son_ ,” he pleads, his fists tightening on Len’s collar till his knuckles go white. “No one knows where he’s gone, if he’s safe, if he’s been hurt. No one’s heard _anything_ , he could be _anywhere_ – he’s a good boy, you don’t know him; if you did, you’d understand why it’s so important, he doesn’t deserve to end up –”

Len kicks Allen in the knee and knocks his hands away, shoving the older man back onto the bunkbed. “Touch me like that again, and you won’t like what happens next,” Len snarls. “And next time, I say hands off? You get your hands the hell off. I don’t care if you’re holding a goddamn baby.”

Allen stares at him. His eyes are brown, not green like Barry’s, but damn if he doesn’t have the same goddamn kicked puppy dog look on his face. “Please,” he says quietly. “If you know anything about where Barry’s gone, please tell me. It’s been nearly two years. I just want to know my boy’s all right.”

One day, Len is going to be every bit as cold and ruthless as his dad taught him to be over so many years. Appeals to his mercy will be pointless.

Unless, apparently, your last name is Allen. 

“Bar’s doing fine,” he says begrudgingly. “Got straight As on his last report card.” Len paused. “Well, except for gym; got a C there. He’s not what you’d call a natural athlete, you know?”

Allen looks like he’s gone through the end of the world and has come out the other side into heaven on earth. “He’s still in school?” he whispered. “He’s not –” 

He trails off, but Len knows how to fill in that gap. Selling himself on the streets, shooting up behind a dumpster, sold as a party favor by one of the Families, slaving away in an illegal factory somewhere, _dead_ …Central’s not what you’d call the safest of cities. Lot of runaways fall through the gaps and end up doing just that. 

Not Barry, though; Mick saw to that. 

Well, Mick saw to most of it; Len had worked out the whole enrollment in school with new papers thing when he’d first arrived to find Barry moping around without something to fill his days. They had to make monthly payments in cash to the school administrator, but no one questioned why Barry Allen Rory’s transcript looked so similar to that of missing-persons-list Barry Allen’s. It helped that the absence caused first by his father’s murder and then by Mick’s well-meaning negligence made it easier to just start him over a year behind, so when they inevitably had to move him two grades _ahead_ , it moved him even further away from Barry Allen’s stay-the-course-for-social-development-purposes course of study. 

“He’s doing okay,” Len confirmed. “He’s happy. Still wants to solve your case, spends all his time running off, looking for mysterious phenomena, that sort of shit.”

“That’s my Barry,” Allen says, laughing a little weakly, then drops his head in his hands. His shoulders are shaking. “Oh god. He’s okay. _Oh god_ …”

Len wonders if yelling “my cellmate is having a nervous breakdown” at the COs would get him out of here. Maybe he could break someone’s nose and get sent to solitary until Allen gets over it? He hates emotions. 

Luckily, Allen pulls himself together pretty quick. Len awkwardly hands him their spare sheet so he can wipe the tears and snot off his face. Great, now they’re gonna have to do laundry and give everyone the wrong impression.

“So, uh,” Len starts. “The lightning?”

Allen chuckles wetly. “I don’t know. I saw…I don’t know what I saw. It look like a whirlwind of lightning, all around Nora, just for a second there and then it was gone. I didn’t see much. Barry saw more of it; he got there first. I’d just burst in, told him to run because Nora was screaming…a second later he was gone and I was on my back in the other room, only when I got up I realized that Nora’d been stabbed. I ran over to help. The rest I’ve already told you.” He hesitates. “I didn’t want to mention it to the cops. They already thought I was high on something. The blood tests were inconclusive, I don’t know why, maybe something I ate; those tests are notoriously unreliable.”

Len nods. He’s still got no idea what to do with the whole crazy lightning story, but two voices rather than one, that was something. At least he had something to work with. 

“I’m not going to let you get murdered by the Santinis,” he impulsively tells Allen. “Barry would never forgive me. He’s got a pair of puppy dog eyes that would stop a tank.”

Allen looks at him with wild, longing eyes. “Tell me more. Please.”

\-----------------------------

Being a cop’s son, Len knows all about recorded phone lines at the prison, so he’s always cautious about exactly what he says. 

He calls Lisa, who thank god no one ever checks too closely if she’s still living with her legal guardian all the time. There were a few years there he had to leave her behind at home, which he’s never going to forgive himself for; now at least he can be sure that Mick will check in on her. They worked out a system a long time ago – Lisa puts her phone on speaker and Mick passes her notes on a notepad if he’s got something to add.

“Hey, Lise,” he says. There’s an audible bit of muffled shouting in the background, clearly recognizable as Barry with someone’s hand over his mouth. 

“Hey, jerkface,” she replies with a little laugh. “How’d you do?” 

Barry keeps trying to shout “I’m sorry” through Mick’s hand. It’s just barely understandable and only because Barry spends a considerably amount of time with Mick holding his motor mouth shut. Like every time the show _Jeopardy_ comes on TV and someone else wants to play along. 

“Three months. Tell B not to sweat it, it’s all cool.”

“Not bad,” she says. “You’re not in any trouble, are you?” She means inside the prison, of course; that sounds like a Mick-generated question. He probably wrote it out before the call even started. Underlined twice.

“No trouble,” he reports. He pauses a little, tries to work out how to say the next part. “Got an interesting cellie, actually.”

“Oh?” she asks, interest piqued. They weren’t really the prison gossip type. “Interesting? How so?”

“He’s a doctor,” Len says casually. “Name of Henry Allen.”

Barry’s muffled shouts abruptly go dead quiet.

“He seems pretty nice,” Len continues. “I asked him a couple of questions about why he’s in here, got an interesting story. Some stuff I’d love to learn more about – you know, for that English class of yours, where you’re writing a mystery novel?”

“Yeah, Lenny, I remember it,” she replies.

“You should send me some of your drafts,” he suggests. “You know I love reading your writing. Maybe something cute. In…what’s that style called? Epistley?”

“Epistolary style?” she says, smile evident in her voice. “Letters, you mean?”

“Yeah, letter-writing style.”

“Sure thing, Lenny. I’ll make sure to include something I wrote for class next time I write you a letter. I’ll make sure it’s as _clean_ as can be, but you can still grade it for grammar, send it back with suggestions.”

Len smiled at the phone, knowing he looked like an idiot and not caring. He knew that Lisa’d get the picture – a bit of drafting and careful editing and Barry’s letter to his dad would go unnoticed, and he could write back suggestions with Allen’s response. Now that he had confirmed for himself that Allen wasn’t a psychopath, they could also set up some sort of independent pen pal system to sneak Barry’s letters in; if they put his name on a lonely hearts listing for cons, Barry’s letters would be lost in the flood of delusional fan mail. 

The rest of the discussion centered on more prosaic matters: grades in school, food issues, everyone’s health, risk of Dad noticing Lenny wasn’t around. They all pretended they couldn’t hear Barry’s sobbing in the background or Mick’s murmurs of comfort. 

Satisfied, Len heads back to his cell. 

“Hey, doc,” he says, swinging in. “I’ll have something for you next week when the mail comes in.”

Allen looks up at him from where he’s started washing the sheets, eyes still red from the last of the ongoing crying jags he’s been having. “From Barry?” he asks. 

Len rolls his eyes. “No, from my dead grandma,” he snipes back, clambering onto the top bunk. He waits patiently for Allen to hang up the laundry, obscuring the view of the cell from the outside. There are a couple of catcalls, unsurprisingly, Len knows his stupid face is a mile and away too pretty, but it dies off pretty quick. Allen has really got no game and everyone knows it.

Len slips off the top bunk as quietly as he can and wanders up casually behind Allen. “Hey, doc,” he drawls.

Allen turns back with a smile that freezes up when Len slides the shiv he lifted off the Santini thug a few days back right up against his ribs. “Why don’t you and I have a seat on the bed and we’ll chat,” Len says pleasantly.

Allen complies very cautiously. “I thought you said you weren’t planning on letting me get murdered,” he says. “Something change?”

“There’s plenty I can do without murder,” Len says. He’s not really the type to go in for threats of torture, but his impulsive confession in their first conversation on the subject did rob him of the usual impetus. “I want to talk about Barry.”

Allen’s face goes all pinched and tragic for some reason. “If you’re wondering if I ever hurt him–” he starts.

Len is surprised into a bark of laughter, which makes Allen frown at him. “Christ, Allen,” Len says with amusement. “Trust me, I know what dads like that are like, and you’re nowhere near it. I’m not worried about what happened when Barry was with _you_ ; according to him it was all sunshine and roses and white picket fences. Something out of Saturday morning cartoons.” 

“Then what’s the problem?” Allen asked, still staying very still. 

“The problem’s in the future, not the past. On my way down to the phone bank, I had an enlightening conversation with one of the guards. Says you still get a handful of visitors. Old buddies of yours – think you’re guilty as sin, of course, but they still come visit, don’t they, once, twice a year?”

“I don’t understand–” 

Len tightens the hand that he’d put on Allen’s shoulder. “Buddies like your friend Joe, right?” he says. “What was it you told me – Joe West, first officer on the scene? Lives down a few streets?”

“I-I mean, yeah. Joe comes to visit once in a while,” Allen says, absolutely lost. “We don’t really talk much, but he gives me an update on –” He goes quiet.

“Let me guess,” Len smiles with teeth. “He gives you an update on how the search for Barry is going.”

“Yeah,” Allen says. “Yeah, he does. His daughter used to be Barry’s best friend.”

Len nods. “You see, that’s a bit of a problem for me. Now, I happen to know that Barry’s doing pretty good right now; he’s in school, he’s got hobbies, he’s got friends, he’s happy as a goddamn bird. I just got off wasting a portion of my phone time setting up a way for you to get letters from him, which I didn’t have to do.” He presses the shiv in a little, exerting pressure but not breaking skin or cloth. “Barry’s got a new family now, doc, and it’d break their hearts for him to be taken away. Your Joe West wasn’t good enough to keep Barry out of CPS’s clutches the first time around and next time Barry runs away he might not be so lucky. I’m not willing to let that happen.”

Allen stares at him with a strange expression. “You love him too, don’t you?” he says wonderingly.

Len glares. What did _that_ matter? “I don’t want to hear that you said one goddamn peep to West about you knowing where Barry is,” he says firmly, trying to get them back on the relevant subject.

Allen, being a dumbass of Barry’s caliber, promptly forgets about the goddamn knife pressed up against his side and protests. “But Joe’s also worried about Barry,” he says. “Our kids were best friends, he was practically an uncle–”

“An uncle who arrested and convicted you,” Len points out. “An uncle that let Barry get snapped up by the system. An uncle who has a _history_ of deciding that what the law says is more important than what’s best for Barry.”

“What was he supposed to do, break the law?”

Len stares at him, then glances ostentatiously around. “Gee, mister,” he replies, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I dunno. Something like that’d _never_ occur to me, good law-abiding boy scout that I am. Tell me, when do you think we get to go on our next pony ride here in Disneyland?”

Allen looks appropriately abashed, at least. “Joe’s a police officer,” he argues back.

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean shit,” Len says. “My dad was a police officer too. Strapping on a badge doesn’t mean shit about your ethics or your desire to do what’s right. You tell me right now that your Joe West wouldn’t try to take Barry back into the system, get him tossed in with foster parents who at best don’t give a damn and at worst–well. There’s a whole lot of worst in Central City.”

Allen’s shaking his head. “Joe was trying to adopt Barry,” he says. “His first application got denied, but he was working on improving it for the second round and they said it was looking good. He would’ve taken him in.”

“Barry’s happy where he is,” Len says. “Who knows if he’d be happy living every day with the pig that threw his dad in the can? Maybe Barry’d get over it, he’s a forgiving sort of person. Maybe he’d be okay living every day with someone who thinks he’s a liar or delusional. Fuck, you know, that explains so much, actually; we’ve only _just_ managed to get Barry to stop lying about everything, you know that? He panics, he lies. He _assumes_ that no one will believe him about anything. How much of that is thanks to your cop friend, I wonder?”

Allen looks ill. “Joe had him for a few months while the trial was ongoing, before CPS denied his first application for guardianship,” he murmurs. “He said Barry was doing as well as could be expected.”

“I’m sure he thought so,” Len says bitterly. “My dad said the same about me after he broke my arm in two places. Said it to _all_ his buddies on the force. Say, I wonder if he and your Joe were at CCPD at the same time. If Joe’s about your age, it’s probably pretty likely.”

“Joe wouldn’t do that,” Allen says stubbornly. “He’s not like that. He’s a good guy.”

“Read my lips, doc – _I don’t care_. I want your word, here and now, that you keep your goddamn mouth shut about where Barry is for at least another two years.”

“Two years? But why –”

“Barry’s fourteen now,” Len says brutally. “Three birthdays you missed. You’re going to miss a whole lot more, but the two that count are the ones that get him old enough to file for legal emancipation if he needs to so he can live where he likes. You tell Joe West where he is before that happens, he’s not going to get a chance to put Barry back in the system, you hear me?”

“What do you mean?”

Len thinks about how Mick would react if the police took Barry away. He shudders at the thought; he loves both Mick and Central City far too much to let that happen. Central’s still updating its infrastructure – there’s a whole lot that’s ready to burn, and Mick would burn with it. 

“You give the police any idea of where to find Barry and I will do whatever is necessary to keep him with us,” Len says quietly. “ _Whatever_ is necessary. You’ll get letters from him on the regular in the meantime; his sixteenth birthday, I’ll bring him in for a visit myself and you call tell West whatever you want. But don’t you dare take him away. Don’t you dare do _anything_ that means he might be taken away from his family.”

“I won’t,” Allen says, and twists to look Len in the eye. “I won’t, I swear. I want – I want to hear from him, himself, that he’s doing okay, and if I can get that, I swear I won’t tell Joe a damn thing.”

Len thinks about it and nods. It’s a reasonable request; he wouldn’t trust words written on pen and paper, either, it’s too easy to coerce. But how to set it up to hide that it was Barry…

“I’ll figure out something,” Len says, mind already whirling with ideas. “Next week – no, week after that, we have to give it some time for us to become buddies, but I’ll set up a call between you and a cousin of mine that wants to go into medicine, yeah? You keep the conversation short and limit yourself to advice about colleges, maybe ask him how he’s doing in school, huh?”

Allen nods frantically, his eyes tearing up again. Len pulls away, slides the shiv back into the hiding place he’d found in one of the posts and flexes fingers that have gone stiff with having to hold it in place for so long. 

“Good,” he says, that feeling of satisfaction that he’d had on the phone with Lisa sinking back into his bones. “I’m glad we understand each other.”

And people say you don’t get anything done in prison. This has been a remarkably productive week, all told: Barry’s summer camp and next year’s books paid for from the museum haul, freeing them up to lie low for a while; got a few leads to help Barry run down about his mother’s murder; set up a communication system or two that will let Barry talk to his dad without risking discovery by the cops. Barry’ll be over the moon. 

Maybe he should take a class or something, Len thinks to himself as he clambers back up to his bunk, keep up with this unexpected burst of productivity. Got to do something to keep busy, after all, and he’s still in the age group where a correspondence college course wouldn’t be too weird. 

“Doc – hey, doc,” he says, poking his head over the side. Allen wipes his eyes and looks up. “You have a degree, right? There any college majors that talk about how buildings are set up? Blueprints, that sort of thing?”

“Uh, yeah,” Allen replies. “Architecture, structural engineering, civil engineering…”

“Cool,” Len says. 

That clusterfuck at the museum is _never_ happening again.

**Author's Note:**

> I know literally nothing about the US prison system beyond what I've seen on TV so please ignore the hand-waving. But I did waste an hour verifying that the sentencing guidelines would actually technically would permit a three month sentence in this situation, particularly if they started with an aiding & abetting charge and were bartering down to a guilty plea.


End file.
